SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
judaism
When the Starved Become the Starvers: A Jewish Voice on Gaza
The images from Gaza haunt me not despite my Jewish identity, but because of it—because I recognize in Palestinian faces the same hollow desperation my grandparents described in the faces of their neighbors.
Jun 11, 2025
The photographs are unbearable. Hollow-eyed children staring into cameras, their faces etched with a hunger that reaches beyond the physical. Families huddled in makeshift shelters, their possessions reduced to what they could carry. These images from Gaza pierce through my screen and lodge themselves in a place where other images have lived for decades—the inherited memories of my grandparents' stories, passed down like sacred wounds.
All four of my grandparents fled the Nazi machinery of death. They carried with them fragments of lives destroyed: a photograph here, a recipe there, stories that began with abundance and ended with ash. They spoke of hunger as a weapon, of siege as strategy, of how systematically cutting off food, medicine, and hope could break a people's spirit before breaking their bodies.
I grew up believing that "Never Again" meant exactly that—never again would any people, anywhere, face the deliberate infliction of starvation and suffering. I believed that we, as Jews, would be the first to recognize the early warning signs, the first to cry out when others faced the machinery of dehumanization.
Today, I am ashamed.
"Never Again" loses all meaning if it only applies to Jewish suffering.
Not ashamed to be Jewish—that identity remains precious to me, woven as it is with traditions of justice, compassion, and repair of the world. But ashamed that a state claiming to represent Jewish values has chosen hunger as a weapon of war. Ashamed that siege has become a strategy. Ashamed that the descendants of those who cried out, "Let my people go" have become deaf to similar cries in Arabic.
This is not what my grandparents envisioned when they dreamed of a Jewish homeland. They dreamed of safety, yes, but not safety built on others' suffering. They dreamed of dignity, but not dignity that required stripping it from their neighbors. They imagined a place where Jewish children could grow up free from fear, but they never imagined that freedom would come at the cost of Palestinian children growing up with empty stomachs.
The Israel my grandparents hoped for was meant to be a light unto the nations—a place where the lessons of Jewish suffering would translate into Jewish compassion. Instead, we see policies that mirror the very tactics once used against us. We see justifications that echo the language of those who once justified our persecution. We see the slow strangulation of a people that feels horrifyingly familiar to anyone who has studied the ghettos of Warsaw or the camps of Europe.
I know the counterarguments. I know about security concerns, about terrorism, about the complexity of this conflict. I know that Israelis have suffered, that Jewish children have died, that fear runs deep on all sides. But none of this justifies using starvation as a weapon. None of this justifies trapping 2 million people in what amounts to an open-air prison. None of this honors the memory of those who died precisely because the world stood by while their humanity was systematically denied.
The Jewish concept of tikkun olam—repairing the world—demands that we speak truth even when it's uncomfortable, especially when it's uncomfortable. It demands that we hold our own people accountable to the highest moral standards, not because we hate them, but because we love them too much to watch them betray their own values.
Being Jewish taught me that moral authority comes not from power, but from how that power is used. It taught me that we have a special obligation to protect the vulnerable precisely because we were once vulnerable ourselves. It taught me that "Never Again" loses all meaning if it only applies to Jewish suffering.
The images from Gaza haunt me not despite my Jewish identity, but because of it. They haunt me because I recognize in Palestinian faces the same hollow desperation my grandparents described in the faces of their neighbors. They haunt me because I see in Israeli policies the same cold calculation that once sought to break Jewish spirits through systematic deprivation.
This is not Jewish. This is not what our ancestors dreamed when they prayed, "Next year in Jerusalem." This is not what it means to be a people chosen for the hard work of justice.
We can do better. We must do better. The children of Gaza deserve better. The memory of those who perished in the Holocaust demands better. The future of Judaism itself depends on better.
The photographs will keep coming. The question is whether we will keep our eyes open long enough to see ourselves reflected in them, and whether we will have the courage to look away from the mirror and toward the work of repair.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Jewish Scholars, Israeli Academics Denounce Trump Weaponization of Antisemitism
"By singling out Jews as a homogeneous group to be protected at the expense of other marginalized groups and minorities, the administration is in fact fostering anti-Jewish sentiments," wrote a group of Israeli academics.
Apr 18, 2025
Jewish voices ranging from academics in Israel to a coalition of mainstream American Jewish organizations this week spoke out against the Trump administration, arguing that the White House's has used the fight against antisemitism as a pretext for targeting higher education. Some said the tactic actually makes Jews less safe.
In January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the purported aim of rooting out antisemitism at higher education institutions, and vowed to target foreign-born students who have engaged in "pro-jihadist" protests.
Since then, Trump immigration officials have detained multiple people involved in pro-Palestine campus demonstrations on Columbia University's campus, including Palestinian green-card holders Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.
The administration's antisemitism task force in February announced investigations into several of universities, and has also targeted funding at multiple universities.
In response to these developments, hundreds of Israeli academics—both in and outside of Israel—signed an open letter published Thursday, alleging the Trump administration is cynically using the goal of combating antisemitism to crack down on Columbia University and other U.S. universities.
"By singling out Jews as a homogeneous group to be protected at the expense of other marginalized groups and minorities, the administration is in fact fostering anti-Jewish sentiments," according to the letter, which also notes the signatories are alarmed by the persecution of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian students and faculty.
"We condemn the weaponization of Jewish students' safety as grounds to silence, harass, suspend, punish, or deport pro-Palestinian members of U.S. academia," the letter states.
Other figures in U.S. academia also aired similar concerns this week.
University of Southern California journalism professor Sandy Tolan, who has written a book about Israel-Palestine, argued in commentary published Wednesday by Rolling Stone that the administration's "witch hunt" in higher education settings "has little to do with actual antisemitism."
"If it did, Trump would have fired Elon Musk immediately after his straight-armed salute on Inauguration Day—a gesture widely interpreted as a 'Sieg Heil,'" he wrote of Trump's billionaire adviser.
Similarly, the Jewish president of Wesleyan University, Michael Roth, toldNPR on Thursday that Trump's scrutiny on universities "is like using antisemitism as a cloak to do other things, to get universities to express loyalty to the president." Earlier in April, Roth wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times making this same point.
According to the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, over 30 prominent Jewish scholars of antisemitism, Holocaust studies, and Jewish history on Thursday challenged the Trump administration's embrace of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism, which critics say conflates legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry. The group said this definition has been used as a tool for the administration to attack higher education.
Meanwhile, a coalition of 10 organizations representing three out of four of the major Jewish denominations in American Jewry issued a statement on Tuesday taking issue with what they called a "false choice" between combating antisemitism and protecting democracy and the rule of law.
"In recent weeks, escalating federal actions have used the guise of fighting antisemitism to justify stripping students of due process rights when they face arrest and/or deportation, as well as to threaten billions in academic research and education funding. Universities have an obligation to protect Jewish students, and the federal government has an important role to play in that effort; however, sweeping draconian funding cuts will weaken the free academic inquiry that strengthens democracy and society, rather than productively counter antisemitism on campus," wrote the coalition, which was brought together by the progressive Jewish Council for Public Affairs, but also included conservative groups like the Rabbinical Assembly.
"There should be no doubt that antisemitism is rising," the coalition wrote, but "these actions do not make Jews—or any community—safer. Rather, they only make us less safe."
Keep ReadingShow Less
130+ Jewish Georgetown Community Members Oppose Attempted Deportation of Scholar Badar Khan Suri
"Making Jews the face of this autocratic initiative feeds antisemitic conspiracy theories and is dangerous for Jews, on campuses and beyond," says the public statement.
Apr 11, 2025
Over 130 Jewish Georgetown University alumni, students, faculty, and staff on Friday collectively spoke out against the Trump administration's attempt to deport postdoctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri and declared that "the growing wave of politically motivated campus deportation efforts is an authoritarian move that harms the entire campus community."
Khan Suri, an Indian national, was abducted by masked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents outside his home in Virginia last month—a scene similar to the arrests of other foreign students who have supported Palestinian rights or criticized the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which experts across the globe condemn as genocide.
"Despite having a valid visa, the agents detained Dr. Khan Suri and rapidly transferred him to a detention center in Louisiana and then Texas," explains Friday's joint statement. "Dr. Khan Suri is a valued member of the Georgetown community. In addition to the impact this has had on him, these events have terrified his students and colleagues, his wife, three young children, and parents, and his broader family and friends."
The statement says that "the political arrest, detention, and attempted deportation of Dr. Khan Suri and others across the U.S., including Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University Ph.D. candidate Rumeysa Ozturk, as well as the revocation of hundreds of student and work visas, are transgressions of civil liberties by the Trump administration and DHS that are commonly seen under authoritarian governments. This should alarm us all."
"The Trump administration is waging attacks on our spaces of learning, including by politically targeting, harassing, detaining and attempting to deport Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, international, and immigrant community members, all while claiming to do so in the name of Jewish safety," the statement continues, citing a White House social media post.
President Donald Trump "is weaponizing Jewish identity, faith, and fears of antisemitism as a smokescreen for his authoritarian agenda, further damaging the campus climate for everyone," the statement asserts. "Making Jews the face of this autocratic initiative feeds antisemitic conspiracy theories and is dangerous for Jews, on campuses and beyond. For multiple reasons, it is crucial that we as Jewish community members at Georgetown speak out and act against this, and we encourage Jews on and off campuses everywhere to do the same."
The statement calls for the immediate release of all who have been "unjustly detained" and an end to "all authoritarian actions" against campuses. It also urges elected officials as well as Jewish community leaders and institutions, including Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League, "to clearly and officially condemn and oppose these acts" by the federal government.
The statement—set to be published by the campus newspaper, The Hoya—also endorses the Georgetown administration's Jesuit commitment to "build an environment where all members of our community are free to express their thoughts" and that recognizes "the human dignity of all," and urges the university's leaders "to continue and strengthen these efforts."
Asked about the statement by NPR, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin responded, "Pretty absurd mental gymnastics to believe that revoking visas of individuals who glorify and support terrorists, harass Jews, and do the bidding of organizations that relish the killing of Americans and Jews, is in fact, making Jewish students less safe."
This is so telling. A bunch of Jewish students and faculty at Georgetown signed a letter protesting the arrest and detention of scholar Badar Khan Suri, saying it makes Jews less safe. The Trump administration responded saying, in short, "We know better than Jews on campus what makes Jews safe."
[image or embed]
— Joel S. (@joelhs.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 12:41 PM
The school is maintaining an official webpage for U.S. immigration policy and regulatory updates. The latest post, from Wednesday, states: "We are aware of approximately six community members who have had their immigration status terminated. The reasons given for such terminations are limited, and Georgetown University was not informed of them by the government."
For The Hoya's Thursday reporting on that update, the newspaper spoke with Nader Hashemi, director of the School of Foreign Service's Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, where Khan Suri was a postdoctoral researcher.
"Six lives have effectively been destroyed," Hashemi said. "I hope the university will live up to its pledges to support students in this difficult moment, particularly international students who've been affected."
"I think the university's statements and the communication has been very good so far," Hashemi added. "I think most faculty and students are basically happy with what the university has been doing, and I hope the university will continue to support students who have been unjustly and illegally targeted by this authoritarian regime that's empowered now in Washington."
The newspaper
reported Friday that students with a new protest group, the GU Student Coalition Against Repression, "planned to stage a sit-in in Healy Hall but moved outside the gates after Georgetown University Police Department (GUPD) officers forcibly removed them from Healy." The action was timed to coincide with the weekend during which potential students, admitted for the following academic year, visit campus.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular